Many
Christians and Christian groups and even churches and church leaders are
celebrating the recent Supreme Court ruling in a case known as Town Board
of Greece, New York v. Galloway.

It seems
to be the conventional wisdom among these folks that the Supreme Court
did a “good thing” in holding that the Town Board of Greece
(and by implication, other legislative bodies) may pray before the commencement
of their public functions.

Given
the totality of the circumstances, however, I believe that this conventional
wisdom is anything but wise. In fact, I believe it to be the essence of
foolishness.

Let
me explain why.

The
Establishment Clause, which is the Constitutional provision at the heart
of this case, is comprised of only ten words. Here is what it says:

“Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,”

So,
the legal question before the court was whether this clause had been violated.
In other words, did the offering of prayer by the Town Board of Greece
equate to Congress making a law, the effect of which is to establish an
official United States religion?

Well,
the answer seems to clearly be “NO” for at least two very
simple reasons:

1) The
Town Board of Greece, New York, is NOT the “Congress”; and,
2) A prayer offered at the Town Board meeting is not a “law.”
It is simply a prayer.

As I
say, if you just read the Establishment Clause and consider the facts
of the case, the answer is quite simple. In fact, there really is no case.
The prayer at the Town Board meeting in Greece is not a violation of the
First Amendment.

In order
to find that a prayer in New York (or anywhere else) is a violation of
the Establishment Clause, the first thing you have to conclude is that
the Town Board of Greece, New York is, in legal contemplation, the Congress
of the United States.

Crazy,
you say?

I agree.
But this is exactly the conclusion the Supreme Court maintains through
a “legal fiction” they call the “Incorporation Doctrine”.

Now,
assuming that anyone would believe that the Town Board of Greece, New
York, in the contemplation of the Framers of the Constitution, is Congress,
you still have another obvious reality that you must cover up with some
blue smoke and mirrors. Namely, you need to employ another “legal
fiction” to conclude that a prayer offered by a Town Board member
is, in legal contemplation, a law made by the Congress.

Again,
you say this is crazy.

Again,
I agree.

Yet
this, dear friend, is the essence of what has, for sixty-plus years, been
sold to the public as First Amendment jurisprudence.

Rather
than examine the simple text of the Establishment Clause, (remember: it
is only ten words long) what the Supreme Court, and other federal courts,
have done for more than six decades, is to invent (and reinvent) what
they call “tests” and “legal fictions” for determining
whether certain actions on the part of persons or organizations violate
the Establishment Clause.

For
example, in 1971, the case of Lemon v. Kurtzman introduced what became
known as the “Lemon test.” This test invoked phrases like
“secular purpose” and “primary effect” and “excessive
entanglement.” In later cases like Lee v. Weisman (1992), the Court
reinvented its test to examine degrees of “coercion.”

We can
think of these “tests” that the court has confabulated just
as we might think of the “smoke and mirrors” that the “great
and powerful Wizard of Oz” employed to hide what was going on behind
the curtain.

Essentially,
the “great and powerful Wizards” on the Supreme Court, along
with their fellow henchmen on the lesser federal courts, have used these
phony “tests,” along with “legal fictions” to
hide the fact that they are playing God.

These
complicated, irrational, and evolving First Amendment “tests”
are a farce and a snare. They are like the Wizard’s distractions
and are used to fool us into thinking he has powers that he does not have.

So,
why do I say that the happy church leaders are foolish and the court has
NOT done a good thing in deciding in favor of the Town Board of Greece,
New York?

I say
this because the Supreme Court ruling in this case is still based upon
phony “tests” and the “legal fictions” rather
than the actual text of the Constitution. In fact, in this case the court
has invented yet another “test” in order to justify its ruling
in favor or the prayer. Briefly stated, the court has invented a “ceremonial
test.” The Court has justified its ruling by declaring that if a
prayer is simply “ceremonial” and “traditional”
and intended to lend to the “solemnity” of the occasion, then
it may be allowable.

In other
words, if a prayer merely continues a ceremonial tradition and is not
really intended to, nor likely to, convict anybody of the truth of its
content, then it can be allowed.

Essentially,
what the court is allowing are prayers that are vain.

Have
these happy church leaders forgotten that God’s Word in Exodus 20:7
forbids us to take the Name of the Lord God in vain?

Don’t
they see that the court will allow you to pray to the Lord God so long
as you are doing it vainly and sinfully?

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Don’t
they see that the court, through phony tests and legal fictions, has taken
a clause from the Constitution that forbids the government from establishing
a religion and used it to establish the “religion” of atheism?

I hope
and I pray that before all our liberties have vanished, we wake up to
the supreme deception of the Supreme Court.

The
Constitution is a clear and simply understood document. Those who hate
liberty try to convince us that it is so complicated that it requires
their supreme expertise.

Let’s
forget the tests and read the text.

Learn
more about your Constitution with Michael Anthony Peroutka and his “Institute
on the Constitution” and receive your
free gift.

Michael
Anthony Peroutka Esq. is a former Presidential candidate and co-founder
of Institute on the Constitution
(IOTC) an educational outreach of his law firm that presents the founders
“American View” of law and government. IOTC has produced thousands
of graduates in all 50 states with a full understanding of the Biblical
principles on which those founding documents are based.

Michael is a
graduate of Loyola College and the University of Baltimore School of Law.